That’s the description I got of how people from the UK sound when they are speaking german, to a german. I heard that from my co-worker (thank Og for her, conversations that aren’t about drivel at last) when I asked her about my german lessons at school. Our teacher described our accent as sounding “posh” or well spoken to a german, I asked my co-worker if this was true and she said not exactly. It wasn’t similar to how a BBC news presenter or member of the Royal family might sound to someone from the UK, but was “high german” or, as she said, german spoken as it was written.
That was something else that my co-worker mentioned, that a friend from the north of Germany visited her in the south and was afraid to speak to anyone in public because she feared not being able to understand the dialect.
The version taught in schools is usually the Berlin accent. As in the US and England, outlying districts speak slower and with less crisp pronunciation. In Austria and eastern Europe there is a much softer sound. The back-of-the-throat “ach” sound and trilled “r” are gone, and more like English.
Not true, actually. The people with the most “hochdeutsch” accent are those around Hannover. It’s not really a dialect, though - I also wouldn’t quite compare it to a 50s BBC announcer, since quite a few people are *able *to speak Hochdeutsch…if they actually *do *it, that’s another kettle of fish.
Depends on what German region people come from - some people have more trouble ditching their regional accent than others. The state of Baden-Württemberg (in the South, around Stuttgart) for example has the promotional slogan “We can do everything except speak Hochdeutsch”.
The Berlin accent, btw, is rather strong and slurry (e.g. “ich” becomes “icke”, “gucken” would be “kieken”) . Also, similar to the Canadian “eh”, Berlin dialect speakers tend to attach a “wa?” to each sentence.
Even before I read your second post I was certain that this involved southern Germans (perhaps even Bavarians?)
High German is used in two related but slightly different senses. Originally people in southern and central Germany spoke dialects of High German and people in northern Germany spoke dialects of Low German. In early modern times a nationwide standard dialect emerged (Luther’s translation of the bible into German was an extremely influential work in this process.) This was based on High German dialects from central Germany. Over the years this standard dialect spread throughout the country as almost the only written form of German (with the notable exception of Yiddish.)
Interestingly the trend towards this standard High German was stronger in the north. Eventually people in the cities and the elites in the North spoke the standard dialect (with some regional variation, but all in all reasonably close) and the rural population was more likely to speak Low German dialects. In the south people spoke High German dialects as they had always done but they were further from the written standard and there was a less sharp division between “standard” speakers and others.
Nowadays people from the north speak dialects that are closer to the written form and people who speak only Low German are very rare. In the south man people speak dialects that are so far from the written standard that they are hard to understand for northern Germans.
There is also the problem that you can find all kinds of outdated or otherwise questionable ideas about dialects in the German public (search for any thread on African American English for examples of the same fallacies; usually the phrase “speak properly” features prominently) Germans who speak dialects far from the standard see those as integral part of their culture but many (including some of their own ranks, if they are honest) associate this with uneducated country bumpkins. It’s also used to distinguish between their own people and strangers. That’s why people sometimes get very defensive about their dialects and reactions to standard High German speakers can be a bit chilly.
To the OP: Think of Hochdeutsch as you would Oxford English…not what most people speak, but arguably the “official” dialect of the language. The important thing is that Hochdeutsch is what german speakers learn in grammer classes, so they will understand it regardless of thier mother dialekt. Hochdeutsch is also preferred for newscasters, regardless of the local dialekt.
Not so fast there:
The Tyroldialekt (Austrian alps area) has about the strongest “ach” sound of any I’ve heard…sounds like they are having a phlegm hacking contest instead of a conversation.*
As for the R’s, most german speakers roll them in thier throat (something I’ve never been able to do) but Bavarian’s tend to roll them with thier toungue, spanish style.
*Dialekts can vary over an incredably small area, I’m specifically thinking of the Zillertal area here.
Interesting! kellner, isn’t Low German classified as a separate language rather than a dialect? I’ve looked at its Wikipedia article, where it says its status “used to be” disputed - but I keep finding conflicting information as to the current classification.
Also, random anecdote: People have accused me of lying when I said I came from Bavaria, as I do not have a Bavarian dialect (unless I want to). Apparently, one also can get really annoyed at the fact that some Bavarians are able to speak “proper” German.
Wikipedia contributors, from what I’ve seen, tend to be splitters rather than lumpers when it comes to language taxonomy. They consider Scots English a separate language for gosh sakes.
In my opinion it should be. I tried to dodge that question by writing about “dialects of High/Low German” which would work in both cases.
There is no truly rigorous distinction between languages and dialects. One rule of thumb is that different dialects of one language should be mutually understandable and different languages shouldn’t. In practice that gives you some guidelines but there are large gray areas where it’s hard to decide objectively. Because of this the common classification is often based on tradition or politics. The idea of one language for one nation in one country was politically more opportune for a long time. That combined with the prejudices against non-standard dialects made it easy to deny Low German the status of a full-fledged language.
I was asking because I remember reading a discussion of the differences between Frisian and Low German, and why one was considered a dialect and the other a language. And I forgot which was which
Well, I’ve once or twice accidentally come across a “Snack op Platt” (“Talk in Low German”) talk show, and I’m all for considering it another language!
That would be because Scottish linguists consider Scots a separate language. (Scots English indeed! I should tell Syntax Queen on you; She would Not Be Amused)
Frisian is a distinct language, spoken in a small part of the northernmost Netherlands and, historically (not sure if still currently) in the offshore Frisian Islands running along the coast of the northern Netherlands, Germany, and southwesternmost Denmark. It’s a distinct Germanic language having nothing to do with the rest of this discussion.
Modern German is that standardized Hochdeutsch dialect based largely on the historical dialects of central Germany, approximately in a strip from from Berlin to Frankfurt. Bavaria, Baden-Wurttemburg, Austria, and Germanophone Switzerland speak divergent Hochdeutsch dialects. The former area of northern, lowland Germany that used to be Plattdeutsch-speaking now largely speaks the national-standard Hochdeutsch, with Plattdeutsch a declining rural dialect.
Plattdeutsch, Dutch, and Flemish comprise one multi-dialect language, often split into three “languages” as a sop to national vanity but really very much the same tongue, spoken from northwesternmost France across Belgium, the Netherlands, and rural Germany from the Dutch border through Mecklenburg on the Baltic. The German usage is now very much discontinuous and in decline, but still present. (Pennsylvania Dutch and the dialects of the Netherlands Antilles are also dialects of this language.)
Polycarp, your post sums up the Hochdeutsch situation very accurately, however, Plattdeutsch and Dutch are not considered the same language. “Flemish” can be defined either as a group of dialects related to Dutch, or the Dutch language as spoken in Belgium (political distinction, much like Croatian vs. Serbian)
Also, the Benrath line is well north of Frankfurt.
People here seem to be getting the terms “dialect” and “accent” mixed up. Everyone in Germany speaks Hochdeutsch with different local accents. It is bizarre to say that few people in Germany speak Hochdeutsch! Hochdeutsch is the official dialect of Germany, Austria, and an official language of Switzerland.
Ever meet someone who pronounces every single syllable the way it’s meant to be pronounced in American English? I’m not talking about like an American broadcaster, I’m talking about unnaturally perfect. Imagine the word utter. Who here actually uses a “t” sound with that? Almost everyone uses a “d” sound there (in America). The only famous person I can think of would be Mary MacDonald in Battlestar Gallactica. Her pronunciation of ever single word is textbook perfect. It’s like she’s learning phonics or something. She’ll say fighting with a “t” sound as well. It’s an extremely silibant way of speaking. It’s entirely normal to come up with phonetic shortcuts to make it easier on the mouth. I’ve noticed it, and done it in nearly every language I’ve known. The differences in these shortcuts are one of the ways we have accents. I find it exteremly grating to hear someone with a “forced sounding” perfect accent where none of those shortcuts are taken. There are even a few we’d probably consider universal to American English.
German is just the same. There are dialects that are much more severe and different from each other than in America, for sure, but when people speak “Hochdeutsch” they will do it with a slight accent. Or maybe you could just say, “a bit lazier” It’s impossible to understand until you can speak their version of it, and after you get used to it, it is actually a bit more comfortable to speak. I remember in Germany, the local dialect was a bit lax with the fricative sound in “Ich.” I exploited this slightly as it is one of the harder sounds for me to make.
I’ve met a German chick from the Danish minority in Germany who spoke German in a highly annoying way. It was just so prim and proper. Every single sound was perfect. I find that it’s like fingernails on a chalkboard for me.
Say what? Local accents as you describe do not make Hochdeutsch impossible to understand. I spoke with a Swiss person the other day, and their Deutsch was perfectly understandable. The same goes for every other area.
If you’re talking about “dialect”, that’s a different story, but you weren’t talking about that…
When I said, “impossible to understand” I meant, it’s impossible to understand the ways in which it is easier to speak until you actually learn to speak some dialect or other. I don’t mean that Hochdeutsch is hard to understand for some reason.
